Nigeria Content Online

Former president
Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday laughed off the emergence of his erstwhile
deputy, Atiku Abubakar, as the consensus candidate of the North in next
year’s presidential elections.

Mr. Atiku had, on
Monday, been named the presidential aspirant of the region by the
Northern Political Leaders’ Forum led by Adamu Ciroma.

Mr. Obasanjo, who
was approached by reporters while leaving the council chambers of the
presidential villa where he had, alongside three other former heads of
state, attended the National Council of State meeting, was initially
reluctant to respond to questions from journalists on his former
deputy’s chances at the polls.

But unable to avoid
the throng of persistent journalists for long, he comically cleared his
nose with his inhaler for a long while before replying in pidgin
English: “ah, I dey laugh o!”

Rather than complete his statement or speak further on the issue, however, Mr. Obasanjo turned into a preacher.

He said he had
always prayed for happiness in life and now he is a happy man. He went
ahead to pray for journalists who were eagerly waiting for him to make a
full comment on the question they had asked him.

“My prayer for you is that you will always have happiness in life” he said, and he got a loud chorus of “amen”.

Katsina state
governor, Ibrahim Shema, who was also approached for his reaction,
merely told journalists that Mr. Atiku is just a presidential aspirant
and that the north will speak for itself at the appropriate time.

When asked to
comment on the emergence of a consensus candidate from the region ahead
of the polls, former head of state, Muhammad Buhari replied that his
party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), has nothing to do with
the issue of zoning.

“Zoning is a purely
PDP affair, but CPC’s constituency is the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Anybody, anywhere can contest for any office he think he can achieve,”
Mr Buhari said.